Smart Communications pursues trusted AI for customers

Customers aren't interested in your internal workings and organisational structure. When they contact you, whether that's over the phone, by email, over the phone or some other medium, they want a positive interaction that solves their problem or answers their inquiry.

But what if those interactions are fraught with tension and worry? Leigh Segall, the CEO of Smart Communications says the regulated industries her business focusses on supporting face these challenges every day.

"Those interactions are deeply personal moments. If you're submitting a claim after a car accident or planning for your retirement or navigating a health scare, these are not routine interactions. They're fraught with emotional weight, urgency and real implications."

Leigh says many organisations don't appreciate is how difficult it is to get those moments right. The regulations, risk, and legacy complexity that sits behind the scenes can make what on the surface seem like a simple problem escalate.  When a customer is expecting you to show up with clarity and simplicity, those are the pieces that are creating conflict.

Organisations in sectors such as insurance, healthcare, government, and financial services – which is where Smart Communications' business is focussed – need to integrate platforms so they can capture data, orchestrate processes seamlessly, communicate with clarity and securely retain that data so it can be retrieved and to meet regulatory obligations. Leigh says this these are the foundations of the company's Conversation Cloud.

Meeting all those demands the best possible technology to ensure handoffs between systems are smooth and that the right data is accessed at the right time. This is where AI can be a powerful enabler. However, Leigh says it's critical to ensure the use of AI is transparent and safe – one of the key objectives of Australia's National AI Plan.

"Trust comes through transparency, governability and human accountability. As AI becomes more embedded, these regulated industries will need to explain clearly how decisions are being made. What role did AI play? Where does human oversight sit? AI must be responsible and easy to review, and it must be aligned with the existing expectations and regulation," Leigh says.

That transparency and accountability sit at the heart of the auditability that's demanded in regulated industries. Knowing where the data came from, what were the models or the rules used and their source.

"Human oversight remains paramount, says Leigh. "Audit trails that show where human reviews and approvals took place, where changes were made, why they were made, and how final decisions came to be help build confidence for customers. From a customer communications perspective there must be traceability on all communications."

Legacy systems are a key challenge for many organisations trying to break down information silos and apply AI safely in their customer communications. Disparate systems that are not made to communicate with each other add frustration to customers and add inefficiency for customer service agents. In many cases, fixing customer communication problems means looking for new platforms that are designed to interoperate and share information.

Leigh says it's difficult to innovate and to modernise unless you replace that fragmentation with a unified environment that enables changes to be made quickly. The goal is interactions that are consistent and traceable so organisations can have confidence that the communications are consistent, compliant and unified to create a single customer experience across channels.

While trust is a key goal in customer communication initiatives that harness AI, there is some way to go.

"Our 2025 CX Benchmark Research asked our enterprise customers how they're thinking about AI so we can understand customer expectations in the industries we serve and how that aligns with their goals. One of the clearest insights from the benchmark study for Australia, when it comes to AI, is that customers are open to AI but trust is very much a work in progress," says Leigh.

Customer interactions do not exist within an application bubble. While a best-of-breed communications platform is vital, it must integrate with other applications and systems. Organisations need their CRM, policy, claims, billing and others to come together. When they don't, risk and inefficiency creep into the process.

Adding to Smart Communications' capability is a major ambition Leigh says. Over recent months, the company has completed two significant, strategic changes. In October 2025, the company was acquired by private equity firm Cinven – a move Leigh says has enabled the company to scale faster and expand into new markets at a greatly accelerated rate.

Smart Communications also acquired Australian firm Pendula. The acquisition expanded Smart Communications' ability to orchestrate message delivery across channels, including intelligent failover when delivery issues occur, such as an invalid email address. It marked the company's second Australian acquisition, with Leigh noting that Australia plays a significant role in Smart Communications' growth strategy.

Seamless, auditable customer interactions rest on unified platforms, transparent AI, and human oversight. Smart Communications works with its clients, many who operate in highly regulated industries, to ensure every customer touchpoint is clear, compliant, and customer‑centric.